Pop duo, and sisters, Alyson Renae 'Aly' Michalka and Amanda Joy 'AJ' Michalka burst on to the music secene in 2005 with their debut album Into The Rush.Not only are they popular in the mainstream market but they also have become very significant in the Christian music market, and are very open about their faith.2007 sees the duo return with their new album Insomniatic and I caught up with AJ, while she was in the UK to promote the album, to discuss her rise to fame

Why did you decide to pursue a musical career did you have a musical childhood?
Yeah, very much so, just growing up around music all of the time was something that really influenced us. For us we had a mum who was a singer and a songwriter, and that really inspired, us we were just introduced to really great music from a young age and that really contributed to what we do now.
And did you always intend to have a career together?
Yeah always, I mean acting not so much mainly separate although we have done acting work together, but our music is definitely together?
How difficult is it being sisters and working together?

I don’t think it’s that difficult, I mean we don’t really mind working together actually, you know people are like you must fight all of the time but we are two years apart and we are really tight we work together, we hang together we don’t really mind. But obviously we go through the stupid stuff that sisters fight back and forth about, really dumb stuff that last like five minutes, but most of the time we are on the same page, especially when it comes to what we do, so pretty much creatively always together, which is great.

How supportive has your family been of your career?

Really supportive, which is actually kind of rare, I mean you see some parents and perhaps they are not rooting for their kids but with out parents they are really, really supportive of what we do and they respect us, which is really cool.

Your new album Insomniatic you wrote most of it what gives you inspiration to write?

I think growing up we have travelled a lot, we have met new people and been on the road and we have experienced a lot from a young age I feel that, for us, we just grabbed all that and ended up writing about that and what we were going through at that time in our lives and we ended up creating Insomniatic.

For us it was just kind of, all these relationship things that were happening at the time, whether it was good or bad, is just something that we just wanted to put out there.

For us it’s really like an open diary for our fans to kind of get an inside of our lives and it’s, musically, grown from our last record.

Vocally we have gotten older and been able to try new things and different things with our voices, that we didn’t know we could do, it’s cool we have really grow experimentally it’s been really fun.

And how would you describe the sound of the new album?

It’s fun because you can dance to some of the songs but you can also rock out to some of them at the same time. It’s definitely music that a lot of people can relate to, which is good; there is some cool fuzz guitar in some of the songs and a lot of programme drums, more than live drums.

It’s really fun and definitely has some good solid ballads but it also has some strong power songs which is great. For me I feel that the song were definitely experimental for Aly and I because we have songs like Potential Break-up Song which we wrote to like a beat we ended up creating kind of a bass line for I and then from there we ended up writing the actual song itself in the studio. So that was something that was different from always writing on the guitar or the piano.

This is your third album how did the recording process differ from the first and second albums did you have more creative freedom?

I think that we have always been fortunate to have creative freedom I feel that everyone has always been great ever since that first record they have really let us to what we love to do and let us do our thing then they listen to the final product.

And the Christmas record went really well too and this one I feel like we have just grown more, which has made it more fun, being more knowledgeable with music and all that it’s been that much more interesting.

I also feel that we have got much closer to our producers and made really great memories in the studio lots of inside jokes and fun times. Just creating new music, for us, is always a total rush we really just get excited when we have new music out there.

It’s kind of fun when you are in the studio and no one really knows what you are doing yet and you are kind of tucked away doing your own thing, then you get a release ad everyone gets to hear it.

You are also very popular on the Christian music scene why did you decide to appeal to more than a mainstream market?

We just really wanted to do both we wanted to reach out to all sorts of tastes of music, and all sorts of ages and all sorts of genres and to not just be in the mainstream market but the Christian market was something Aly and I thought would be really cool to try and branch out a develop.

Telling people about your faith is that something that is very important to you?
Yeah definitely that is that way that Aly and I have been raised and how we have grown up and it’s everything that we want to uphold.

You both also act how easy is it to move how easy is it to move between acting and singing and which do you prefer?

It’s so hard because they are rally hard to compare, because they are so different, acting is not you it’s creating a random character that’s written for that is obviously given to you for you to make appear live, which is pretty cool. But music is obviously yourself you know we are writing our material, recording it in a studio and then performing on stage and that is us, that’s who we are. So they are so different but you definitely get highs from both, which is cool, I think both are equal and would be pretty bummed if I wasn’t doing one of them.

You have a MySpace page what have you found to be the benefits of the internet?

I think just people being able to be more aware of your work YouTube, MySpace, the internet period, everything just gets uploaded on there these days and I think it’s cool for people to see that.

You have recently been on a tour in the U.S how was that and have you any plans to tour here in the UK?

We definitely want to tour here. The states was really fun we went all over the place, we toured for two and a half months, we went to every state except six which is pretty insane. But it was very cool for us just meeting all the fans was neat and coming here to London has been unbelievable, I can’t wait to tour in the UK.

How has the UK responded to our music?

Really well, it’s amazing, I mean the record comes out October 22 and people are already pumped up about the single Potential Break-up Song and people already have known, kind of on the street, it’s so cool we are in a whole other country and people know our stuff it’s really, really amazing. It’s definitely really liberating to be here.

Femalefirst Helen Earnshaw

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